1. Field Of The Invention
This invention relates to communications networks, and more particularly, to an automated interactive communications network for establishing simultaneous two-way communications between a central site and a large number of dispersed sites such as those of telephone subscribers.
2. Description Of The Prior Art
In many situations, such as polling, merchandising, warning systems, and remote reading of utility consumption, it is desireable to transmit telephone messages to a large number of telephone subscribers. Frequently, a single operator's console is provided to allow calls to be made. A separate link from the telephone subscriber to the central console is established, and a pre-recorded message is transmitted to the subscriber. Some systems provide only one-way communication between the operator and the telephone subscriber while others record responses for later analysis or processing. Typical systems access a group of subscribers in a sequential manner.
Telephone messaging systems are known that selectively and simultaneously transmit stored messages to telephone callers and have provisions for storing and distributing called-in messages. While some of these systems can simultaneously service numbers of callers, prerecorded or stored messages as opposed to real time responses, are provided.
Techniques including hardware and methodology are also available for the sequential transmission of telephonic messages between a central caller and a group of subscriber's. To do this on a large scale, that is, to communicate with thousands of possibly widely dispersed subscribers, would be so costly using conventional techniques as to be economically unattractive.
In addition, current systems lack the capability of compiling the results of the subscribers' responses in a practically instantaneous manner.